CRANES AND CEOPS. II7 



when the face of the country was covered by Vast tracts of swamp 

 and forest; Even now, at the period of migration, they swarm 

 in the east ; ' the whooping and trumpeting of the crane,' says 

 a great authority (Canon Tristram), ' rings through the night air 

 in spring, and the vast flocks we noticed passing north near 

 Beersheba were a wonderful sight.' 



Virgil mentions the Crane in two passages as doing damage 

 to the crops : and this is fully borne out by modern accounts 

 from Asia Minor and Scinde, quoted by Mr Dresser in his 

 Birds of Europe. The poet says of them {Georgic i. 118) — 



Neo tamen haec cum sint homiuumqiie boumque labores 

 Versando terram experti, nihil improbna anser 

 Strymoniaeque grues et amaris intuba fibris 

 OfEiciunt aut umbra uocet.'^ 



And in line 307 of the same book he tells the husbandman 

 that the winter is the time to catch them : — 



Turn gruibus pedioas, et retia ponere cerris 

 Auritosque sequi lepores;'' 



a passage from which it might appear as if the Crane were 

 snared as an article of food, not only as an enemy to the 



' But no whit the more 

 For all expedients tried and travail borne 

 By man and beaat in turning oft the soil, 

 Do, greedy goose and Strymon-haunting cranes 

 And succory's bitter fibres not molest 

 Or shade not injure — 



' Time it ia to set 

 Snares for the crane, and meshes for the stag 

 And hunt the long-eared hares. 



